y the
Lord! we shall have it. Main braces there, men, and square the yards.
Be smart! That topsail should have been in," muttered the mate; "but
I'm not captain. Square away the yards, my lads!" continued he; "quick,
quick!--there's no child's play here!"

Owing to the difficulty of finding and passing the ropes to each other,
from the intensity of the darkness, and the deluge of rain which blinded
them, the men were not able to execute the order of the mate so soon as
it was necessary; and before they could accomplish their task, or
Captain Ingram could gain the deck, the wind suddenly burst upon the
devoted vessel from the quarter directly opposite to that from which the
gale had blown, taking her all a-back, and throwing her on her
beam-ends. The man at the helm was hurled over the wheel; while the
rest, who were with Oswald at the main-bits, with the coils of ropes,
and every other article on deck not secured, were rolled into the
scuppers, struggling to extricate themselves from the mass of confusion
and the water in which they floundered. The sudden revulsion awoke all
the men below, who imagined that the ship was foundering; and, from the
only hatchway not secured, they poured up in their shirts with their
other garments in their hands, to put them on--if fate permitted.

Oswald Bareth was the first who clambered up from to leeward. He gained
the helm, which he put hard up. Captain Ingram and some of the seamen
also gained the helm. It is the rendezvous of all good seamen in
emergencies of this description: but the howling of the gale--the
blinding of the rain and salt spray--the seas checked in their running
by the shift of wind, and breaking over the ship in vast masses of
water--the tremendous peals of thunder--and the intense darkness which
accompanied these horrors, added to the inclined position of the vessel,
which obliged them to climb from one part of the deck to another, for
some time checked all profitable communication. Their only friend, in
this conflict of the elements, was the lightning (unhappy, indeed, the
situation in which lightning can be welcomed as a friend); but its vivid
and forked flames, darting down upon every quarter of the horizon,
enabled them to perceive their situation; and, awful as it was, when
momentarily presented to their sight, it was not so awful as darkness
and uncertainty. To those who have been accustomed to the difficulties
and dangers of a sea-faring life, th